Royals waste solid pitching effort, lose 2-1 to Giants in 11 innings

Here was one moment from Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium. Eric Hosmer is striding to the plate in the bottom of the 10th. Men on first and second. One out. Tie game.

A single in the right spot will deliver a fifth straight victory. One swing can offer relief from a season-long slump and a night of near misses.

Hosmer rolls over a 94 mph fastball and hits a grounder to second base. It’s his sixth double play of the season. The inning is over. Hosmer rips his batting gloves off at first base.

This was one moment from Tuesday, a night that stretched 11 innings and ended with a 2-1 Royals loss to the San Francisco Giants in a rematch of the 2014 World Series. But it could have been another. It could have been Hosmer grounding out with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth. It could have been second baseman Raul Mondesi striking out on three pitches with two men on in the 10th. It could have been Mondesi repeating the act in the 11th as Giants closer Mark Melancon slammed the door.

The Royals (6-7) finished the game 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position. They left 11 men on base. The offense received a solo homer from Whit Merrifield, who was recalled earlier in the day, and little else. A date with Giants ace Madison Bumgarner awaits Wednesday night.

“There’s a lot of frustration,” Hosmer said. “Individually, I came up with some good situations there. Just couldn’t make the most of it.”

In the end, Hosmer finished the night 1 for 4 and still managed to raise his batting average to .200. Mondesi finished 0 for 3 as his average sank to .114.

As two franchises met for the first time since Game 7 of the 2014 World Series, the Royals wasted a sterling performance from starter Jason Hammel and a gritty performance from the bullpen. As the night ended, Hosmer was left to speak for a struggling offense while manager Ned Yost was left to explain a decision to let Mondesi hit with men on base in the ninth.

The latter situation arose against right-handed reliever Derek Law. Brandon Moss singled with one out. Merrifield drew a two-out walk. Mondesi, a 21-year-old with four hits in 12 games, was set to bat. The Royals had right-handed hitters Cheslor Cuthbert, Christian Colon and Paulo Orlando on the bench. Inside the Royals’ dugout, the coaching staff discussed the options. To a man, Yost said, they preferred to play the platoon advantage. They hoped, Yost said, that Mondesi would see — and hit — a fastball.

“We just all felt like Mondi … guy’s going to throw him a fastball and a good fastball hitter can make something happen,” Yost said.

Moments later, Mondesi had struck out on three pitches. The performance leaves the Royals in a precarious position. In 13 games, Mondesi is hitting like a National League pitcher, looking overmatched at the plate. Yet, he is not the only Royal struggling. There is Hosmer, of course. There is Moss and Alex Gordon and Orlando, all hitting under .200.

“I mean we can talk about Mondi ’til we’re blue in the face,” Yost said. “We were 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position. We pick up one of those runs and we’re not even talking about it. So in the big scheme of things, Mondi’s not the problem.”

The Royals’ relief corps had pushed the game to the the 11th with four scoreless innings. Left-hander Scott Alexander, who was forced into two innings of work, finally faltered against a Giants offense that was just slightly more effective than the Royals’ hitters. Hammel allowed just one run in seven innings, piecing together his best performance of the season. And yet, the offense was absent.

“We just didn’t get it done,” said Hosmer, who has one extra-base hit, a homer, in 13 games. “We’ve just got to figure out ways to tack some runs across the board, whether it’s just doing something different than just swinging the bats.”

On Monday, the Royals had enjoyed their third day off in 14 days. A cadre of former Cubs — including Hammel, Travis Wood and Jorge Soler — had traveled to Wrigley Field to pick up their 2016 World Series rings. Back in Kansas City, a baseball team laid idle after a 6-6 start. The starting rotation had posted the best ERA in baseball — 2.31 in 12 starts. The bullpen had stumbled out the gates. The offense was a work in progress, prone to fits of solo homers and little else. A reinforcement arrived Tuesday in the form of Merrifield, the 28-year-old utility man who had lit up Class AAA pitching after a roster crunch forced him to the minors.

On his first night back, Merrifield started in right field and opened the scoring with a solo homer off San Francisco starter Matt Cain in the bottom of the fifth. He finished 2 for 3 with two walks. This was after Merrifield had stood inside the Royals clubhouse before the game and talked about his childhood battles with Bumgarner, the villain of the 2014 World Series and a fellow North Carolina native.

As the Royals’ offense searched for answers against Cain, who had entered with a 4.82 ERA in two starts, Hammel found his stuff. He allowed just one run over six-plus innings. He lowered the starters’ collective ERA to 2.25. The only momentary letdown came when San Francisco’s Hunter Pence slapped a 92 mph two-seam fastball into right field in the top of the sixth, producing an RBI single.

Hammel exited with nobody out in the seventh, leaving after surrendering a double to Brandon Crawford and a single to Eduardo Nunez. Neither baseball was struck particularly hard. Yet the inning would require an escape act from Peter Moylan and Wood, who kept the Giants off the board and left the bases loaded. The moment appeared to foretell a happy ending. But the Royals could never conjure a big hit.

“It’s one of those tough ones,” Hammel said.

Before the game stretched into the night, the game was nearly lost in the sixth when San Francisco’s Buster Posey cracked a hard grounder up the middle with two outs. The score was tied at 1-1, and Mondesi was positioned up the middle, ready to make the play. A brief bobble left the ball on the turf and sent Brandon Belt sprinting for home. Mondesi recovered and fired a throw toward the plate. It was wide, toward the first-base side, yet catcher Salvador Perez made it work.

The baseball skipped on the infield grass and picked up speed, wedging into the webbing of Perez’s glove. The collision of spikes, dirt and leather came next.

It was, in some ways, was the most important tag of the Royals’ young season, a distinction that one generally does not make. But here was Perez, picking a ball off the dirt, snow-coning it in his glove, and reaching back toward home plate, where Belt’s left foot shoved the baseball back into the glove.

The tag defied general physics and displayed the sheer athleticism of the 6-foot-4, 250-pound Perez. The moment kept the score deadlocked as a regular-season rematch of the 2014 World Series turned dramatic.

“After seeing replays, I don’t know how that ball didn’t come out,” Hammel said. “Nine out of 10 times, I’m sure that ball pops out. But it was a great grab.”

Inside the dugout, the moment offered a spark. And Yost waited for a clutch hit, a go-ahead run, relief from a quiet period of production. It never came.

“I mean, I just was certain we were going to punch a run across,” Yost said. “We just couldn’t make it happen.”

Giants 2, Royals 1, 11 inn.

This story was originally published April 18, 2017 at 11:02 PM with the headline "Royals waste solid pitching effort, lose 2-1 to Giants in 11 innings."